Monday, December 19, 2011

A Dalmatian, A Dino, and a Disney Dream - Days in the Park's Disneyland's Hidden Mickeys Giveaway

We know that you've all been dying to know what the big deal was with yesterday's picture and how it tied into today's article (we gave you a teaser about that yesterday if you saw our post), and we've been dying to tell you!

But first, to business! This week's photo challenge spot (we'll include the shot again a little lower in this article) was located inside Disneyland Park, in Mickey's Toon Town, right near the entrance (and next to Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin) at the Toon Town Firehouse.

We don't spend a lot of time in Mickey's Toon Town, but we really appreciate its place in Disneyland and all that it has to offer. Roger Rabbit is one of our favorite characters, and it's worth a trip inside simply for the fact that he resides there. We had a lot of great guesses yesterday, and judging by the fact that they were almost all right, you guys handled this one pretty easily!

As always, we like to give a shout-out to everyone who came by and
guessed, so here they in order of guess and name (those who knew the exact spot are asterisked):

infaMOUSEprojct *

Monica

Katherine

stknkc *

adisneymom *

ChristinaShaw76

Nicole

DisneyAmanda3

ajackieo *

Robinpoppins *

Elizabeth

But now, on to why we chose our little friend Patches to begin with. We've mentioned before on our blog how Chad and Mark have been avid Hidden Mickey hunters since well before they started blogging. Which, of course, also as we've mentioned before, made us very familiar with Steven M. Barrett's Disneyland's Hidden Mickeys: A Field Guide To Disneyland Resort's Best Kept Secrets very early in the game. We've always been the kind to find first and confirm later, so we never owned a copy of the book ourselves, but rather, we'd find something inside the Disneyland Resort that we thought might be a Hidden Mickey, and then we'd grab a copy of the book and flip through it looking to see if it was mentioned or not, to confirm it for ourselves.

One of the things we noticed very early on was that Mr. Barrett isn't only listing those he found, but it really was a team effort, and there was a huge acknowledgement section in the front of the book, thanking everyone who had submitted a Hidden Mickey to him, that he was able to confirm. He's certainly under no obligation to give anyone else credit for their finds (though we do think it's the right thing to do), so we were pretty impressed by that. Consequently, it became one of our "Disney dreams", if you will, to find a Hidden Mickey, submit it to Mr. Barrett, and one day see our own name in an actual, published book that was sold inside Disneyland. It might not seem like a big deal to some, but we're pretty goofy like that.

It wasn't long before Chad found Patches; the very same that we used in yesterday's post (and there's the connection!). Who knew that pushing that little button on the Fire House would make a little dalmatian appear, and who knew that once he did, we'd notice a big fat Hidden Mickey on his head? But he did! And that became the first submission either of us made to Steven M. Barrett on his web site trying to get into the book. It's not to say that no-one ever noticed it before Chad did. In fact, we would be astounded if no-one has, but being the first to submit it, that's what's important to the Hidden Mickey hunter!

You can find Patches on pages 36 and 57 of the guide, as well as in Steven M. Barrett's Top Ten Honorable Mentions segment of the book

Mark was relatively quick to follow suit, and after a fairly lengthy refurb on Toy Story Midway Mania in Disney California Adventure Park, where they added in many of the "Toy Story 3" characters in with some new games on the attraction, noticed some very "Mickey-ish" looking marking on Trixie's cheek. So we submitted that as well!

You can find Trixie on pages 67 and 79 of the guide, the very first Hidden Mickey mentioned in the book for Disney California Adventure Park

Several months passed by and we didn't really think much else of our submissions to be honest. Mr. Barrett is a great communicator, and had emailed us back almost immediately letting us know he would research them and see for himself whether he would accept them the next time he was at Disneyland, but they were never added to his website, and to be quite frank, we had almost forgotten about them. We didn't even realize the book had been updated until...

We were in Disneyland during Halloween Time one evening and, while Chad was otherwise indisposed, Mark grabbed a copy at a newsstand and started flipping through. And there we were! Chad was on his way back and Mark grabbed him, yelling out "Dude, I'm about to make your day!" We're pretty sure the Cast Member working the area thought we were crazy the way we were high-fiving each other and carrying on, but there we were! Right there, in plain sight, Chad Elliott and Mark Treiger! We're still not sure what made Mark pick that book up and look through there, and if he hadn't, we might still not know we're there; maybe that star we wished upon way back when finally came home. But at any rate, there we were, in a book (our names anyways) that is sold at the Disneyland Resort, and another Disney dream has come true for us!

Next up, seeing our names in the book in the 4th Edition in bold, signifying that we've found and submitted at least 10 different Hidden Mickeys. And we do have some that aren't in the book, or on his website, to submit. We may just make another Disney dream come true!

And now, it's time to try and make one of your Disney dreams come true (we hope!). The fine folks at The Intrepid Traveler have kindly sent along two copies of Steven M. Barrett's Disneyland's Hidden Mickeys for us to pass on to you, our Days in the Park readers.

So here's what you need to do to enter, and we've made it super easy for you:
1) Leave us a comment letting us know that you want a copy of the book. That's it! Couldn't be simpler, right? Just leave us a comment saying "We wants it", or "I need my Hidden Mickey fix", or "I love the mouse", or pretty much anything you want to say and just let us know you want to win a copy, and we'll do the rest! If you do have a Twitter name, leave that for us as well so we'll have an extra way to contact you should we need to for any reason.
BONUS ENTRY! 2) Check out The Intrepid Traveler website and sneak a peek at all of the other wonderful Disney-oriented books that they have there. Then, come back here and leave us a comment telling us what other Disney publication they put out that might interest you! Again simple, right? But you must leave us the name of another book that interests you, so we know you checked out their site. Makes sense, right?

You
will recieve ONE entry for each comment that you leave us, for up to a possible total of TWO entries per person. BE SURE TO LEAVE US A COMMENT FOR EACH ITEM THAT YOU COMPLETE - THEY MUST BE SEPARATE COMMENTS. That way, you are assured that both of your entries get counted in the drawing.

Our giveaway will run until Sunday, Jan. 01, 2012 at 11:59PM-PST. We will hold two drawings (one for each of the books) for the
winners on Monday morning the 2nd using Random.org, and will announce the winner here on our blog as well as on our Facebook page, and contact the winner at that point.

All clear? If you do have any questions about the drawing, please send us an email at contests@daysinthepark.com and we'll do our best to answer anything you have for us there.

Hopefully one of the things that will come of all of this is that we'll create some new Hidden Mickey hunters! If you're already hunting them, great! Keep the hunt alive! But if not, maybe this will be just the thing to push you over the edge and get you doing it. They're so much fun!

Let the entering (and hunting) begin!

The Intrepid Traveler provided Days in the Park with four copies total of Steven M. Barrett's Disneyland's Hidden Mickeys: A Field Guide to Disneyland Resort's Best Kept Secrets - 3rd Edition. Two copies were sent for review purposes to Chad and Mark, and were kept for their own personal use (at the behest of The Intrepid Traveler), and two copies were to be given to you, our readers, which we're doing here.

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comments:

Wow...I got Toon Town right (I even have a picture of my kids in that firetruck WITH the firestation (including windows) in the background! But...I did NOT know you push a button to see Patches! THIS is why I need the Hidden Mickey's book! :)

I think the "Things to do in Line" book looks interesting. With 5 kids who have never really had to stand in line (we usually go during the off season), it'd be nice to have during those times we DO have to wait in line.